Ikura desu ka
by Fox in the Stars
Summary: Only weeks after the end of the Kyoto Arc, Soujiro is faced with a challenge altogether new to him, and for which he stands woefully unprepared: everyday life.


Ikura desu ka?  
"How much does it cost?"

Rurouni Kenshin Fanfiction  
by Half-Esper Laura

_Author's Note:_  
While it's fairly loosely-stitched at present, my Soujiro fanfics do form a continuity. They can be read and enjoyed as stand-alones, but for optimum effect, I recommend reading them in chronological order, as follows:  
Life's Battles  
Ikura desu ka (you are here)  
Okaerinasai  
Owaranakatta  
Fuyu no Hiakari  
Fuyumatsu

*

_"Feed a dog for three days and he will remember your kindness for three years."  
~From a Japanese Proverb._

Soujiro had barely known that money existed while Shishio was alive. It had been like oil in the joints of a machine. It was bothersome when there wasn't enough, so you put more on and hardly ever had to think about where it came from. He'd take some with him on errands and eat where he pleased. Now he wished he could have the money from even just one of those errands back somehow. Luckily, he had at least brought some with him, but not much.

Hard to believe that had only been a few weeks ago, that Shishio had died and Soujiro had been completely thrown out of everything he'd known to make his way through the world alone, and also through an even more confusing world inside his own skin. Thinking and talking and making decisions meant walking some internal labyrinth in total darkness and only knowing his mis-steps when he walked himself into a wall or cornered himself. The blows and trapped feelings he could read from his body, as if the maze were somehow a physical thing, even as he travelled it only with his mind.

At times he could feel himself so far from any of the walls he could forget that he was trapped in that maze and raise his face to a world of sun and cool, open air. But then suddenly, and sometimes with no warning or alternative, he would run into one, and it would hit him in the side of the head or in the stomach, or even twist his arm. When he thought "Shishio-san and Yumi-san are dead. I won't see them anymore."—it was an inescapable fact and he didn't see what was wrong with thinking it—that wall in the maze had seized him violently by the throat, and he lay in a rented room for two and a half days choking on tears and that thought before he got free of it.

Money had walls attached to it, too, and the less money there was, the closer those walls were when he thought about it. A night in a bed cost money, a meal cost money, and he still didn't know where money came from. Those walls were closing in on him, very close now, as the few coins he had left would probably buy a meal today and then be gone. They were closing in on his stomach, although it was sometimes hard to tell that squeezing from hunger.

There was a very large part of him that he couldn't put a name to that said the blue sky and the wind in the leaves and the road under his feet were all the nourishment it needed. His stomach was stubbornly against that view and was rapidly bringing the rest of his body to its side as he tried to stretch the last of his money by spacing his meals out as much as he possibly could.

Money had to come from somewhere. He had to look for it when he got into town. He could already see the chimney smoke up ahead.

Something moved, further down the road—a little short-haired dog, white with a brown split-cap and perked-up ears on its head and brown marks over its shoulders. It had a small narrow face and a full chest that tapered back into trim hips and a docked stub of tail which started twitching back and forth as it stood half on the road, half on the grass, and watched him come closer. As he walked past, the little dog wheeled around and trotted after him, occasionally with a little hop to get his attention.

"Hello, Koinu-san*," he said finally. He crouched down and stroked the wire-smooth fur back over the dog's rounded skull. It sat back like an obedient pet, then chased after his hand with its nose and gave a flurry of affectionate licks when it caught up. Soujiro laughed and stood. "I'm sorry, but I have to go," he said, starting toward the town again. The dog followed him almost into view of the town, then ran off into the trees again.

The town bustled, but gently, with the business of a normal day. The dust of the street, the straw of people's sandals, and the wood of vendors' stands gave the entire scene a cast of warm, dull tan within which the colors of cloth and fruit struggled to dazzle shoppers' eyes.

Soujiro watched the activity closely. Shopkeepers got money for their wares, but he didn't have anything to sell. Maybe he shouldn't have given Shishio's wakizashi back if he could've gotten something for it. He saw children beg for a few coins from their parents for candy or toys, but he had no one to give him anything. How could he start from nothing? What could he do that someone would give him money for? In the early days Shishio had no qualms about killing people and taking their money if some was needed, but the thought of it made one of those walls loom close in the dark. Besides, Soujiro wanted to try a different way. He wasn't sure why, but he wanted that very much.

There was a poster nailed to a wall.

REWARD. LOST DOG.

Soujiro walked up to it and read it.

Cash reward for return of short-haired dog.  
Docked tail, white with brown markings,  
approx. 18 inches high at shoulder.  
Please return to...

He only skimmed over the address. It certainly sounded like the dog he'd seen outside town. Even if not, maybe someone would pay money for a dog, if someone would pay to get one back.

He went to a food stand, where the cooking smell tickled his stomach painfully. Sorting through the copper coins he had, he managed to spend only part of it on four pork dumplings and ate one immediately, because it would just hurt too much not to. But he kept the rest and went back out to the road through the trees where he had seen the dog.

He didn't see it this time, so he put one of the dumplings on the ground at the edge of the road and sat down in the grass to wait. Within minutes, the dog came trotting out of the woods and sniffed at it.

"It's food, see?" Soujiro said. He broke one of the remaining morsels in two, ate one half and held out the other so the dog could see the meat inside. It swiftly took the food from his hand, then snapped up the one on the ground. Soujiro held out the last one to lure it back, and the dog ate it and licked his hand all over. Swiftly but carefully, he wrapped one arm around the dog's chest, tucked the other under its haunches, and picked it up. The little animal squirmed about in his arms, but not fighting to escape; it craned its neck back toward his face and licked his ear.

Soujiro's shoulder scrunched up as the tickle made him laugh. "I'm taking you home now. You'll like that, right?" He carried the dog like that back into the town, checked the address on the poster, and set out in that direction.

The house that he came to was a tall one with an unworn slate-blue tile roof and a wide yard. "Ehh, you belong to a rich person, don't you?" Soujiro said to the dog. "You're lucky." Koinu-san had stopped fidgeting and rested its head against Soujiro's shoulder.

He rang the bell at the low gate, and in moments, a man with slicked-back dark hair appeared on the porch and put on his geta before crossing to him. "Ah, you found my dog!"

"Yes," Soujiro said. Koinu-san barked.

The man opened the gate and gestured them in. Soujiro entered the yard, which was lush and green, with a path of white water-smoothed stones leading to the porch. He set the dog down on its feet on the path. "Your poster said there was a reward...?"

"Yes, yes, of course," the man said, and found his wallet in his kimono. He handed Soujiro one coin, but it was a gold one, worth a lot. This would keep him fed awhile longer... "So much! You must really like this dog."

"I should. His parents were some of the best hunting dogs I've ever seen. This one's fast and clever, and he has the potential, but he's a feisty one. Always gives me trouble." The dog had started barking again, and he had to raise his voice to talk over the noise. "You see what I mean? But thank you for bringing him back," he said, walking Soujiro to the gate.

"It was no trouble," Soujiro said. "Goodbye, and thank you for the money." He exited the gate and started down the street with the coin still in his hand, but it was hard to admire it. Koinu-san barked even louder as the gate closed, further and further behind him.

The barking stopped for a moment, then came a high-pitched yowl and a sudden clatter of wood and footfalls. Soujiro turned around just in time to see Koinu-san come dashing down the street, the gate still rattling. The dog skidded to a stop and practically wrapped itself around Soujiro's ankles.

His owner was only a moment behind, and the dog shrank behind Soujiro's legs as he came close. "Sorry about this," he said, a quick aside, then knelt down and reached around. "Come on you rascal!"

Koinu-san's barks each faded into a hollowed-out whistle of protest as the man took him by the spare skin of his neck and dragged him that way against his stiff-angled legs.

Those walls were closing in again. Soujiro knew he had to do something to escape them. "Stop it!" He picked the dog up again, and Koinu-san fell silent and lay against him.

"All right, then," the owner said. "Follow me; we'll put him in the kennel with the others." He started back toward the house.

Soujiro didn't move. He was standing in the open air now, with the breeze brushing at his hair, but back toward the house wasn't the way to go. Looking that way, he could already see the walls close around it, tight and oppressive. He was still holding the gold coin. To be free of that worry, the lack of money and what it bought, that was something, but looking where that man was headed, even just looking, it didn't feel right. The coin could take away one problem, but at what cost?

The man paused and turned. "Well? Come on."

Soujiro dropped the coin on the street. "Take it back. I'm keeping this dog."

The owner started shouting, but once Soujiro turned and started running, there was no catching him.

**********

That dog-owner could easily start trouble, so Soujiro left the town that very day. He put the dog down to go its own way, but still it trotted along after him as he walked down the road. Nothing but trees and rice fields stretched out before him as the sun sank lower and lower and the light faded from white to gold, red, and finally blue darkness. He kept walking for awhile, carefully picking his way through the twilight with a clumsy feeling much like that of the maze-in-his-mind—which cropped up at every turn to remind him that what he had now was a few pennies and a dog he couldn't feed. He didn't know why he'd given the money back, either, but thinking about it now, he knew the walls would've squeezed him if he'd kept it, too.

"This was a really dumb thing I did, ne, Koinu-san?" he said. Yumi was right, after all. How stupid could he be, caught out here with practically no money, stumbling around in a darkness still deepening as clouds moved in on the stars?

The sky was grumbling when he finally recognized a geometric patch of silver-blue starlight, and he carefully waded through the darkness and felt out its shape with his hands: a small shrine, attached to a thick overhanging tree. It was a tight space, but it had a roof, and the murky night air had dragged at him like water, leaving him exhausted. He sat against one of the walls of the little shrine and folded his legs into it. His feet were braced uncomfortably against the other wall, but Koinu-san climbed up into his lap with cold paws and curled up there, so Soujiro decided not to move his legs and disturb the dog.

"I'm sorry I got us into this," he said, leaning his head against the back of the shrine—just under the shelf that held the little statue of whatever kami** it was—and stroking the dog as it settled in to sleep.

**********

It was a light, just-cool summer rain which made the air heavy and sweet, and Soujiro woke up only a little bit wet, with his nose and throat feeling thick from the sleep and damp air. He half-expected the dog to be gone, but it was still there to greet him with licking and nuzzling as he woke up.

A drizzling mist was left over from the rain as he got up and brushed off the back of his hakama. Unfolding his legs relieved some pressure on his stomach that made it feel more keenly how empty it was, so much that his legs ached under his weight, even after the rest.

Nonetheless he bowed to the kami statue before going back to the road—that was what people did, right? He'd never learned to be the praying kind, but... "Thank you for letting me stay. If you could maybe help me find some money and food, I'd really appreciate it." That made him feel a little freer and he set off down the road, Koinu-san still following.

The sky was dull white and very low over the trees, which faded with distance into a greenish smoke on the horizon. The sun fought to make its way through the misty air and left it a bit chilly, but Soujiro enjoyed listening to the high, soft _shaaa_ of the falling mist on the leaves, punctuated by their own raindrops as the water collected and ran off of each one. _Was it always like this?_ he wondered. _Were things like this happening all this time?_ He'd never seen such a world before, such a sweet damp morning, but already he knew that they had always been there, and it was just that he hadn't been able to really see them. Sometimes when he felt boxed in, he thought it would be wonderful to go back to the world he had known for ten years, a little closed room in which nothing could ever come that would fluster him, without that internal labyrinth lurking around any corner. But although it was only a month ago, he could ponder all day and not know how that room had fitted together. And that room also had nothing like this morning inside its walls.

Koinu-san might have enjoyed the weather, too. He was very quiet as he explored the morning air, now running ahead but never out of sight, now falling back, sniffing around in the grass and staring off into the mist in seemingly random directions.

Soujiro had hoped to maybe see the next town come floating out of the mist toward him, but by the time he got there, the sun had risen high in the sky and sent the mist retreating into the trees, and his stomach redoubled its protests as even the air became thinner and lost the almost-nourishing substance of the morning. The good thing about it was that it made everything in the town a very clear picture, so much that he could almost see the wood grain in the boards of stands and buildings across the street.

When he came to a restaurant, the smell of food was almost overpowering, and he retreated and sat on the porch of another building to scrape together what money he had. It was just pennies, but he knew he had to eat something. He took the few coins and a deep breath and went to the restaurant again, telling Koinu-san to stay and wait outside the door. He walked into the building very slowly and with tremendous effort, as if pushing himself through nearly-solid air. Once inside, the clatter of dishes and especially the food all around him made the room feel dizzy and close.

The girl who greeted him was chubby and baby-faced, with her hair pulled back into a tight bun. Strangely, the strands that escaped spun into little tight curls, not like a Japanese person's hair. "Welcome! What can I get for you?" she asked.

"Um... what could I get for this?" He held out his modest handful of change.

She blinked and looked up at him for a long moment. "Well, uh, what would you like?"

His brain seized on that comment as if he were pitted against her in battle, trying to read her strategy as she put it to him to make the first move, but it seemed out of place. She wasn't trying to hurt him...

"Are you all right?" she asked. He'd been quiet too long.

"Oyakodon† would be good," he said, "but I don't think I have enough money."

She looked at the coins again—good that she'd followed him back to the original tack. "Well, you won't believe it, but we have a special today. You just have enough."

He didn't believe it; her voice was too soft and hesitant, but he was relieved and smiled to hear it. "Thank you!"

"I'll have it ready soon," she said as he handed over the money.

"I'll be out on the porch if that's okay."

"Yes, of course," she said, and went back to the kitchen.

The relief of opening the door was a physical sensation as the tightness of the enclosed space lifted away into the open air and sun, and the food smell out here wasn't so bad now that he knew some of it would be for him. Koinu-san was waiting for him, and when he sat down on the edge of the wooden porch the dog lay down against his hip. The weight of the little warm body against him made him smile. "You're a nice boy, aren't you, Koinu-san?" He stroked the smooth, wiry fur.

He was just beginning to wonder about the food when the same girl came out and handed him a tray. "Cute dog," she said.

"Yes."

"So, what brings you to town? I don't think I've seen you before.

He held up a hand while he paused, chewing the first mouthful of egg, onion, and rice and swallowing before he replied. "I'm just passing through."

"On your way to somewhere?"

"Maybe. I don't have anyplace in mind, but I think I'll know it when I see it." It was a stock response, and this time it seemed like a lie. He couldn't really think that far into the future.

"Why are you doing it?" she asked.

"Eh?"

"It's unusual for someone to wander around with no destination. Why are you doing it?"

Again his mouth was full, and he waited to reply.

"Aiko!" came a shout from inside.

"Coming!" she called back. "I'll be back," she told Soujiro, and disappeared into the restaurant before he could swallow.

Turning back to the food, he found Koinu-san's head resting on his lap, looking up at him with the brows lifted in that way particular to dogs.

"Well, I can't make you go hungry, can I?" he said. He picked a piece of chicken out of his meal and set it on the porch floor. Koinu-san sniffed it briefly before snapping it up. Soujiro smiled again as the stub of tail twitched back and forth. He took another piece of chicken and had to drop it suddenly or the dog would've eaten it right off his chopsticks. As it was, he caught the morsel in midair. "Hey, you're pretty good."

The meal went by that way. Koinu-san had most of the chicken, but by the end of the rest, Soujiro was so full his stomach started to hurt.

But the girl still wasn't back, so he ducked inside and left the dishes on an empty table before he left, Koinu-san following with a wagging bob-tail.

"So now there's no money left," he said, presumably to the dog, as he wandered down the street. "What do we do now, I wonder?"

He hadn't had any ideas when he reached the edge of the town, and just kept walking.

**********

Another night outside—may as well get used to it. This time it didn't rain, and Soujiro curled up among the roots of a huge, gnarled tree. Comfort was not much of a concern; despite the hard ground, he fell asleep easily, and the sun was already high in the sky the next morning when Koinu-san roused him with licks and nuzzles. He picked himself up, took a moment to remember which way he was following the road, and set off again with the dog at his heels.

The path had dwindled from stone to dirt, two stripes rubbed bare by close-set wagon-wheels, and was surrounded by trees and overgrown grasses. The wheel-tracks were the only sign of civilization, and sure enough, there was no sign of a town as the day wore on. Occasionally, he could pick out an architectural silhouette on the horizon, but that was all, and he stayed on the path.

By noon the Oyakodon was a distant memory. Maybe Koinu-san thought so, too; he occasionally uttered little whistling sighs. "I'm sorry. I don't have anything to feed you." The dog trotted along beside him quietly for a little longer before wandering off into the grass.

_It's better if he goes his own way..._ Soujiro thought. But even out here in the open air, the walls felt closer without a companion.

Late in the afternoon, he came to a signpost jutting out of the tuft of grass that split the path in two. Each branch named a distance and a destination, and he took the shorter route.

He heard barking and a flutter, and a covey of birds exploded out of the tall grass, followed by Koinu-san leaping out onto the trail. With a few barks at the birds, he spun around and loped back to Soujiro, took a turn around his feet and fell into step beside him as though he'd never been gone.

"Did you catch something to eat?" he asked. The dog seemed more refreshed and energetic, so he imagined that it had. "You'd think I could do that, wouldn't you?" But Soujiro had been an assassin, a fighter—never a hunter like this dog. He didn't even know where to start. He didn't see how it made sense, that he was "strong" and could fight and kill all but the very best of swordsmen with ease, but now was baffled, daunted to the point of inaction by the prospect of killing some small harmless animal. The thought of a dead animal put a sickening twist in his already-knotted-up stomach, anyway; he wasn't sure he could eat such a thing if he caught it.

The road widened and smoothed out, and he walked past cultivated fields fenced in with stripes of trees. The town was getting closer.

The stars had come out when he came to a bridge across a stream, and from it began a paved road through a wooded park, surely leading to the town. But now it was late, and without the money to stay indoors, he decided to camp out by the water for the night. Across the bridge, he followed the water downstream until the road disappeared behind the trees, and he found a spot to lie down, curled up on his side.

Koinu-san nuzzled his arm out of the way and curled up in a matching curve, leaning against his chest.

"I'm really glad you came back," Soujiro said, laying his arm around the dog.

A day without food left his stomach crying, a pining ache which was bleeding through his bones to the rest of his body, and although he was more exhausted than on any night he could remember, he could barely reign in his mind and quiet it down to sleep. His thoughts moved quickly and easily, but out of control, like walking on ice. It was a miracle it hadn't sent him sliding into the walls of the maze—yet.

He was so exhausted that the weariness brought tears to his eyes. He knew he had to rest... He clung as tightly as he dared to the little dog, and to the sound of the laughing water, hoping to steady himself enough to fall asleep.

**********

Soujiro woke slowly to Koinu-san licking his hand, occasionally mouthing it gently with his teeth and batting it with a paw. "Sorry," he said, pushing himself up. "I'm not ready to let you eat _me_ just yet." His empty stomach pulled at him as he stood up, as if it were tethered to the spot. It made his legs feel shaky under his weight.

He tasted the stream-water and found it sweet, and took a long drink from it, but neither the cold water nor the sharp hunger-pain could cut through the grogginess of sleep. If he was going to do something in the town—he didn't know what, but he'd have to do something to eat again—he'd have to be awake, and more presentable.

He left Koinu-san nuzzling through his clothes and lowered himself into the water carefully, staying close to the bank. As his mind became more alert, it was just as slippery as it had been the night before, and he imagined that if he wasn't careful, it could go sliding off into the deep water with him and he might drown. He minded that more than the cold, and made it a slow, careful bath as Koinu-san formed a sort of nest out of his kimono, but even as the dog lay down, it held its head up, watching him with bright, steady eyes.

At last he climbed back onto the bank, and the air on his wet skin was even much colder than the water. He squeezed as much of it as he could out of his hair and picked up his shirt—tugging a corner of it out from under the dog—trusting the rest of his body to dry later on its own.

He buttoned down the front of the shirt and instinctively reached for the cuffs, only to find them already buttoned, despite the open feeling around his wrists. The cuffs hung around them in a wide circle such as he's never seen before, and he stared at them quizzically for a long moment before he gently shooed Koinu-san off the rest of his clothes and finished getting dressed.

His body felt feather-light, but still his legs bore the weight of a tremulous ache, as if they might collapse under him at any time. Still, nothing to do but go on. He had to think for a little to remember which way led back to the bridge.

"Come on, Koinu-san," he called as he started back upstream. The dog trotted ahead of him and led him up the bank, silent and serious.

The paved road that led up from the stream was a pleasant walk, and it made Soujiro feel a bit more confident. What he had supposed a few days ago was "the worst" had happened, and yet here he was in this open space. The trees overhanging the path didn't make it feel closed-in, but rather the honeycomb space between their trunks stretched beyond the limit of vision, vast and airy.

But the moment Soujiro passed into the town, its main street lined with buildings, he knew that the walls had not gone away. No, indeed it seemed they had taken advantage of the calm and crept in closer than ever. They weren't squeezing-yet-but they were there, thicker than ever and skin-tight, setting him off by a mile from whatever-no, it was whoever-he saw. He could no more walk up to one of these people and speak to them than he could walk up and talk to one of the dense white clouds that were drifting lazily across the clear blue sky.

So he paced up and down the marketplace all morning, a little bit slower each time, each time promising himself that he would do something to save himself before he reached the other end, but what could he do? Ask someone for money? Steal? These were things he could not do. He'd set himself up between two of those walls, finally. One said "I can't do that" to every thought; the other was there behind him to reply every time "You'll die if you don't." And every time he reached the end of the street and had to turn around, he was squeezed tighter between them. He could feel the pressure in the bottom of his chest and the back of his eye sockets.

At last it was more than he could stand, and he sat down on the corner of a shop's wide porch. It gave him a start when Koinu-san jumped up with his front paws on his lap. He hadn't even noticed the dog following him through town.

"I'm sorry, Koinu-san," he said, resting his cheek on one hand and stroking the dog's head with the other. It let its feet down off his lap and rested its chin on his knee. "I don't know when I'll be able to feed you again. I'm sorry, I just really don't know what to do..."

Koinu-san turned his head away toward the street-noises, and Soujiro looked in the opposite direction. From here he could see the rolling green hills outside the town. This place wasn't going to help. There was a certain appeal to just setting off down the road again, to keep walking until something happened and resolved all of this, even though that would probably mean to keep walking until he collapsed from hunger and died...

"Grandpa, look! What a cute doggie!"

Soujiro whipped around to look, and saw a little girl kneeling down with her knees sticking out from under her kimono and petting Koinu-san's head. The dog was sitting not ten feet away and barked once as its stub-tail wagged back and forth.

"Can we take him home, Grandpa? Can we?" the girl begged of her grandfather, a portly old man with thin white hair.

"Now, this dog probably belongs to someone. We can't just take him."

"Um, that's my dog," Soujiro spoke up. He rose carefully on his shaky legs and walked over to them. They seemed like honest people, and by the old man's clothes, it looked like they made a comfortable living. Someone had to take care of Koinu-san, and if he could make something by it too, so much the better. "I'd sell him if you want him."

Koinu-san craned his neck back and looked up at Soujiro upside-down.

"Come on, please?" the girl begged. "Daddy was talking about getting another dog."

"Well, it's just a lot of expense. I hate to rush in..."

"I won't ask for much," Soujiro offered. The opportunity was slipping away and dragging his stomach along with it.

"Well, it's not just that, there's the food and all the things a dog would need..." the old man mused.

"Please?" his granddaughter pleaded. "I'll help take care of him, I promise."

"I'd have to talk it over with your father first," he said, taking her hand to lead her away.

"Wait!" Soujiro called. He couldn't let them walk away like this... "Please," he said—the words were just coming out of him without any thought in them—"I... I can't take care of him right now. That is, I don't have money to feed him or anything, so... If you'd take care of him, I'd really appreciate if you would take him..."

"The girl walked over and hugged Koinu-san, who was still sitting in the same spot. "Please, Grandpa? He needs our help, see?"

The old man sighed. "Oh, all right. Thank you, sir."

"No. Thank you. I appreciate it a lot," Soujiro answered.

"What's his name?" the girl asked.

"I just call him Koinu-san."

She scrunched her nose at Soujiro for a moment. "Come on, Koinu-san," she said.

The dog looked up at Soujiro.

"It's okay. Go with them; they'll take better care of you than me," Soujiro told him.

Koinu-san didn't budge, even when the girl wrapped her arms around his chest and tried to pick him up. For all her effort, he lay down in the street.

"Here," Soujiro said, gesturing her aside. With one hand under the chest and one under the haunches, he picked up Koinu-san and met with an unexpected struggle to get to his feet with the weight. "Wow, you got heavy!" he said. He turned to the grandfather and passed the dog into his waiting arms.

Koinu-san barked but didn't squirm. "It's okay, see?" Soujiro assured him. The barks faded to whines and then to just a pleading look of those dark eyes and pinched brows. "Thank you again for taking him," Soujiro said.

"It's no trouble. We've had a dog for years; we'll take good care of him." The man turned to his granddaughter. "Let's take him home, then, shall we?"

"Okay," the girl said as they turned and started off. "Bye mister! Thank you!" she called back to Soujiro, who just waved.

Koinu-san poked his head over the old man's shoulder to look back at him and barked again, and Soujiro waved to him, too, until they turned a corner and were out of sight.

Soujiro rested his hand against a corner-post of the porch and leaned against it. Sitting down again wouldn't get him anywhere, but he still didn't know what to do next. He knew he should feel less daunted, now that he didn't have to take care of Koinu-san as well as himself, but he didn't; he felt worse. And now, standing up, he keenly felt the empty ache in his stomach, down the bones of his legs, and now in his arms, too. They had been hurting when he picked up Koinu-san...

A few days ago, the dog hadn't been so heavy. When he thought about it, it couldn't have gained weight in that time, with no money for food...

Soujiro felt the effort of keeping his balance as he lifted his hand from the post and looked at it. The cuff still hung loose around his wrist, and his hand was shaking. His arm ached and trembled under its own weight. So weak...

_If you're strong, you live. If you're weak, you die._

_So that's it. I'm going to die now_, he thought. Even if this was like what Shishio had told him about sickness, not a weakness, but a battle††, then it was a hopeless battle, for which Soujiro stood completely unarmed and untrained. Maybe Himura's way was right, but it didn't really matter, did it, if he couldn't do it anyway...? _A man can wander for ten years before he finds the right way to live. Or for one month and then starve..._

He looked back toward the marketplace, where the people of the town were milling about, going about their lives, but it was looking at something he wanted and couldn't have, and he turned his back to it and walked away. Without knowing why, he walked not toward the green hills outside, but deeper into the sidestreets of the town, where the architecture reflected the close walls inside his mind. He'd gotten himself trapped, finally, closed in with nowhere left to go.

After a few minutes he found himself in a wider space that had been carved out among the houses—a graveyard, bristling with memorial stones in plots bounded by low, ornate fences. Soujiro wandered among the tombstones, some adorned with flowers. _Shishio-san and Yumi-san are dead, and soon now I'll be dead too, in a place like this..._ No, not like this. There was no one to place a stone or flowers for him, now not even Koinu-san to miss him. He knew it didn't matter, but he didn't like to think about it. It might even be that the stone he walked past just now was someone he had killed. So he was stronger—or he had been—but once they were both dead, it would be better for that person, having flowers...

He wandered into a corner between two of the fences and sat down there on the ground, holding his crying stomach with both arms. He felt the walls fall in close around him, more solid now, enough to hold him here and make sure he never stirred from this spot again, but it didn't matter anymore. They could do what they liked with him now.

_I'm going to die. I'm so hungry..._ And he was all alone. He folded his knees and curled up so tightly as to hide his face, pressing himself into the corner, and without meaning to, he began to cry.

**********

Something knobby poked Soujiro in the angle between his neck and shoulder, but he felt it only distantly, and barely stirred in a half-sleep. It was a familiar high-pitched bark that started him awake, and he raised his head to find the street bathed in golden afternoon light. The tombstones striped the ground around him with their long shadows, and there at his feet sat Koinu-san.

Soujiro blinked at him. "Wha... what are you doing here?"

"That's what I want to know about you. Get up," someone ordered, prodding him again. He struggled to look up—it was a uniformed officer with a mustache, holding a baton.

"Police...?" he asked, pushing himself upward, although his legs were even shakier now.

"That's right," the officer said, taking his arm and dragging him to his feet amid protesting barks from the little dog. "Come on." Another, younger officer was waiting back on the open street.

So now he'd been caught by the police. It was over for certain; they would surely kill him. But that didn't matter. Being executed was, he supposed, a better way to die than sitting there and starving, so he didn't fight them as they led him away, back to the main street and toward the police station. Not so with Koinu-san, who bounded about their feet, barking loudly and trying to trip them up until the mustached officer cursed and swung the baton at him. Koinu-san danced nimbly out of the way of it and growled before barking again, so loudly that the sharp bursts of sound bounced off walls and echoed down the street.

The human traffic was thinning out as the time drew toward evening, but suddenly there came a flurry of footsteaps, and the little girl came running toward them, followed not by her grandfather, but by a younger man. "Daddy, Daddy!" she cried, pointing. "There he is! And there's the man who gave me him!"

"Is this your dog?" the younger policeman asked the girl's father.

"Yes," the father and Soujiro replied in accidental chorus. "I mean it's his dog," Soujiro added.

The girl calmed Koinu-san down by stroking his back, and he sat down by Soujiro's foot, looking up at him so that his ears flipped back into upward points.

"What's this man been charged with?" the father asked.

"He's been loitering around town all day," the mustached officer said. "We picked him up just now asleep in the graveyard. Probably just a drifter. We don't need that sort in this town."

"But he hasn't done anything or broken any laws?"

"We'll find something."

Soujiro knew that they certainly would, but quietly watched his fate being decided.

"Now, officer, I think this fellow's just down on his luck. That's not a crime, is it?"

"Well, not as such..."

"And he gave my daughter this fine and apparently very loyal dog because he didn't have the money to take care of it and wanted it to have a good home. That doesn't seem like the work of a criminal personality to me."

"I guess it doesn't," the younger officer spoke up again.

"Well, what do you say?" his partner asked Soujiro, lifting his chin with his white-gloved knuckles. "What are you doing in this town?"

"Um, I was just passing through, and I was tired and didn't have money for a place to stay. I didn't mean to cause any trouble."

The older officer considered it. "All right." He let go of Soujiro's arm and waved his partner aside. "But if I have a reason to bring you in again, you won't be so lucky." With that he turned and the two policemen walked away.

_Lucky..._ Soujiro stared after them.

"The police are scary!" the little girl whined.

"I know, sweetie," her father said, "but the police are here to protect us. You shouldn't be scared of them."

"But..."

Koinu-san whined and pawed at Soujiro's hakama again as he kept staring off into space.

"Are you all right, sir?" the father asked him, getting his attention with some difficulty. "You look pale."

"Eh? I..." That was all Soujiro said. That same obstacle that had kept him a mile away from the people of the town, now it was lodged in his throat, telling him he couldn't speak, but the other one—the "you'll die if you don't" one—had fenced him in completely, on three sides so he couldn't even turn around.

"What is it? What's wrong?" The man took his shoulder with one hand. It shook him to be touched, but he couldn't move...

Even the little girl realized something was wrong, and took a handful of the front of his kimono. Both her eyes and her father's were pulling at him, trying to pull words out of him, but he couldn't speak, and the pressure of it was building painfully. He lowered his head to try to find some respite from those searching looks, but there was Koinu-san, looking up at him so crescents of the whites showed at the bottom of his dark eyes, and he cocked his head with a low whine, as if in concern.

It was more than the blockage could withstand. As it shook, Soujiro made a broken, wordless sound, but as his throat cleared, the words began to pour out of him with more and more force. "I... I don't have any money... And I don't have anywhere to go... Ahh! I'm so hungry!" Some pressure behind his eyes was breaking through, too, and he buried his face in his hands as he started crying again. "I'm going to die!"

"Now, now," the man said, hesitantly taking him with an arm around his shoulders. "It's not so bad. It'll be all right."

Soujiro shook his head. Would he have come to this if it was so easy!? "No! I don't know what to do... My hands are shaking..."

The man turned to his daughter. "Sweetie, you go on ahead. Tell your mother we're having a guest for dinner and to fix something light." She ran off down the street as told, seemingly shaken by Soujiro's outburst.

"Come on," her father said. "We'll get you something to eat and talk. It's not so hopeless, you'll see."

As the man led him toward his house, Koinu-san at last got up to keep pace beside Soujiro's left ankle.

**********

After going without food for so long, Soujiro's stomach felt full very quickly, but his hosts sat on the porch with him, talking and eating for several hours, and little by little he managed to take in a decent amount of food. The girl played with Koinu-san in the fenced yard under her mother's watchful eye while the two men of the house, father and grandfather, sat on the porch with him and asked how he had come to be in such a predicament. He used a bit of the truth, telling them that he was a martial art student who had left his school due to a conflict of philosophies, but that the life he'd chosen to leave was the only one he'd ever known, and he didn't know what to do in normal living.

They seemed to believe his story and sympathize. The younger man, impressed by Koinu-san's intervention with the police, even paid Soujiro for him after all, with a coin like the one the dog's former owner had offered. This time, however, Soujiro was happy to accept as Koinu-san nuzzled and licked the little girl's hands.

The grandfather gave him a hook and a string to catch fish, and they both suggested asking around for odd jobs if he needed money. Inns could often use spare hands, they said. He looked for the walls, particularly the one that had caught in his throat, but he didn't find them at all now, so he said that yes, that would be a good way.

Eventually the stars came out along with a bright moon, and the girl's mother bustled her off to bed. Her father gave Soujiro some extra money for a room—he couldn't blame them for not wanting to keep a stranger in their house—and led him to the gate in the fence.

"Good luck," he said. "Feel free to come again sometime."

"Thank you for everything," Soujiro replied. He knew the invitation was mainly polite formality, but it pleased him nonetheless.

The moment the low gate latched behind Soujiro, Koinu-san came running across the yard and jumped up against the inside of it, standing with his front paws braced against it. The father took him gently and stroked him to calm him down. Soujiro leaned over the gate, and the dog barked at him. "It's okay," he said, giving Koinu-san a bright, genuine smile. "You have a good home now, right?"

Koinu-san barked again, wagging his stub-tail.

"Don't worry about me. I'll be okay now." Soujiro straightened up, lifting his arms from the gate. After a moment's pause, the dog wheeled around out of his new owner's hands and trotted back to the porch, where the grandfather waved to Soujiro before picking Koinu-san up and carrying him into the house.

"Good night," the younger man said.

"Good night!" Soujiro turned and set off down the street with a smile.

Better not to rent a room, he thought. After all, he'd been seen by the police. Best to be as far away as possible if they realized who he was. When he came to the main street, the shops were all shut up and silent, leaving a clear path to the wooded hills beyond the town, which looked blue and cottony in the moonlight. It was clear air all the way out to those distant trees, and when he lifted his head to look at the stars, the cool evening seemed to reach even that high.

In minutes, he had left the walls of the town behind. The road shone clearly in the bright moon, and as he walked along it, his feet hardly felt his weight at all, as if he were being borne along by the endless expanse of open air.

_Owari_

Footnotes:

*Koinu-san: "koinu" means "little dog" or "puppy." 

**Kami: one of the 8 million gods of Shintoism. 

†Oyakodon: a Japanese dish of diced chicken cooked in a special sauce with egg and onion, served over rice. And my own favorite non-sushi order at Japanese restaurants... 

††See "Life's Battles" (another Soujiro fic of mine which is posted on FF.net) 


End file.
